The present invention relates generally to a method and system of doing business, and more specifically, to a method and system of designing a standardized process for electronic transactions in a large organization of diverse operations.
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) conducted over a global communications network, e.g. the Internet, offers a whole host of opportunities to market and sell products on a worldwide basis. One of the main benefits of e-commerce is that it can be done at a fraction of the cost normally associated with traditional transactions. Further, e-commerce sites can be “open” 24 hours a day to serve customers throughout the world regardless of differing time zones.
However, this brave new world is fraught with uncertainties and risks. As business managers and organizations rush to provide products and services over the Internet, there are many pitfalls which must be guarded against. One such pitfall is the unknown customer—the customer who ultimately ends up being the end user/third party purchaser. For example, it is desirable for legitimate companies to avoid doing business with customers that may have connections to money laundering operations or those with bad credit. Further, in many areas of commerce, there are regulatory issues which must be addressed in order to minimize legal risk to the selling organization. For example, when selling medical related technology, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other organizations, such as the State Department, have various regulations which severely limit commercial transactions both in the United States and abroad. These issues and others need to be addressed immediately before the organization exposes itself to some unforeseen liability by doing business over the Internet. Such problems are exaggerated with large organizations that have diverse operations.
It would therefore be desirable to have a set of process steps defined to implement electronic transaction systems consistently in organizations with diverse operations.